Narration Paragraphs

Narration is story-telling. A narrative paragraph tells a story through a sequence of events. This kind of paragraph usually includes a topic sentence, or main idea; the rest of the paragraph develops that idea. A clearly-written narrative paragraph does not, however, cover too much territory. It focuses on a single event.

The following narrative paragraph tells how the writer met his girlfriend:

I became Nancy’s boyfriend because I was trying to run away from her. The first time I saw her was right after I swam a few laps at the University of Wisconsin’s Red Gym. My eyes were smarting from chlorine, but, having nothing better to do, I decided to see a movie on campus that night. Waiting for the film to begin outside the theater (a campus lecture hall), sat Nancy; she kept turning her curly blond head to stare at me. Because I am shyer than a seventh-grader at his first dance, I looked away, and once we were inside, I sat ten rows behind her. Nevertheless, before the film began, she kept twisting in her seat, shooting me long, hungry stares that made me increasingly nervous. After the movie, I rushed outside, jumped on my bike, and pedaled like a madman up State Street. Nancy, I was horrified to discover, was on a bike too, not far behind. I turned on the gas, pedaling fast around the capital building and down King Street on the other side. She caught up with me at the next stop light. “Hey,” she said, “you were at the movie, right?” She wasn’t even breathing hard.

Choose one of the topics below for a narration paragraph:

A first kiss
A coincidence
A painful situation
Something that happened at a party
An incident in a restaurant
A sudden revelation
A mugging
A fortunate event
A lie
A confrontation with a bureaucrat
A weird customer
A life-changing event
The last time I saw my dad or mom
An injury
Choose your own topic